Premier David Eby says the government upped its wage offer for two striking public service unions this week by a half per cent.
Union leaders say this is not a "meaningful" offer.
"It is a fair offer. It's a reasonable offer," Eby said. "And we're trying hard to balance two things. One is that we hugely value the work done by the public service, and the other is that the money is not there to go further."
The B.C. General Employees' Union (BCGEU) and the Professional Employees' Association (PEA) represent roughly 35,000 B.C. public service workers, and job action by the two unions continues to escalate after a month of strikes.
More than 15,000 workers are now off the job, ranging from B.C. Liquor store employees to transportation engineers.
Talks between the sides resumed briefly on Monday (Sept. 29), but broke down almost immediately once the unions received the revised offer.
The government's offer is four per cent over two years, five per cent if additional allowances and altered wage classifications are taken into account. Either way, this represents a 0.5 per cent increase from the previous submission. The union balked at this and countered by decreasing its demand of 8.25 per cent over two years to eight per cent.
There is still plenty of room for escalation. BCGEU President Paul Finch said that about 5,000 of his union's workers are deemed essential, leaving the potential for approximately 15,000 more to go on strike.
Finch said the union showed up for the talks at 9 a.m. on Monday and was forced to wait nearly three hours for the government to show. At eight minutes to noon, the government submitted an offer that is 0.5 per cent higher over two years than the previous one.
"We feel like they came to give the illusion of bargaining taking place, and attempted to drag that out over time," Finch said. "We're not here to play games."
Eby said the government is "fiscally constrained" by a slowing global economy, and "creativity" is needed to meet the needs of the BCGEU.
"At the end of the day, we've got to make sure that taxpayers are protected, as well as the hard-working public service," he said.
On Wednesday, the unions held a rally in downtown Vancouver, while picketing continued at 167 sites across the province.
Another rally targeted an NDP caucus meeting at the B.C. legislature, with bullhorn-wielding demonstrators shouting up at the second-storey windows where the meetings take place.
The PEA also escalated its job action on Wednesday to include professional foresters working for the Ministry of Forests.
